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And the winner is:The winners for our Motley Crue ticket giveaway are Mark Thibault, Robert Thorn, Dean Brandenburg, Wes Hahn and Erik Gals. Stay tuned to www.metromix.com to see the results of our second Motley Crue contest, in which the band will answer the winner's question. That contest winner receives the band's catalog on vinyl, an autographed drum head and the band's autobiography "Dirt."

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Rock music culture is like most pop culture: What comes around goes around. That's now the case with Mötley Crüe. One of the first 1980s bands to combine makeup, teased hair and heavy metal, the band has been together for decades of change in its chosen genre.

Bassist Nikki Sixx said in a teleconference last week it's a good time to be in a rock 'n' roll band.

"It's just like when we first came out -- what we do is coming back," Sixx said. "You see (video games) 'Rock Band' and 'Guitar Hero,' and you see what's going on with movies and big companies coming to bands like Mötley and Metallica and Guns N' Roses and saying, 'We want your music in our movie or TV show.' What that's telling me is that what we did all along was valid."

Mötley Crüe plays Wednesday at the Reno Events Center. The band's tour features three other acts: Hinder, a Canadian rock band that sold 4 million copies of its debut two years ago; Theory of a Deadman, another Canadian band with a current radio hit in "Bad Girlfriend"; and the Last Vegas, a Chicago band that beat 8,000 hopefuls to win an opening slot on the tour and a record deal with Sixx's label, Eleven Seven.

The excess of the rock lifestyle is embodied in Sixx. According to the band's biography, he was legally dead from a heroin overdose in 1989 before being revived with an adrenaline shot. Even though Sixx is now clean and sober, he said "different band members have different amounts" of the party spirit in them when Mötley Crüe goes on tour. He compared it to being in the circus.

"There's the tightrope walker and the ringleader and the fire-breather," he said. "Whatever recklessness happens between them just happens, and it leaves a trail of something ... bad. I can't tell you what that 'bad' is ... but we come, we go and then return in a few years and try to make amends -- then usually make it worse."

'Fast' success

According to its biography, Mötley Crüe started when Seattle-born Sixx met drummer Tommy Lee in Los Angeles in 1981. The two shared a love of hard rock and soon met up with guitarist Mick Mars, who took out a "band wanted" ad calling himself a "loud, rude and aggressive guitarist."

Soon after, they met singer Vince Neil and started playing clubs on the Sunset Strip. Within a year, the band self-released its debut, "Too Fast For Love." The mix of '70s rock with punk drive caught the attention of Elektra Records, which re-released "Too Fast" and saw it go platinum.

Sixx and his band were at the forefront of the glam rock revival among metal bands. Now the owner of a clothing line, Sixx said reinventing yourself is the same for the clothing business as it is for rock bands.

"There's a lot of pressure," he said. "It's what people used to do when you had to make four albums in a year, every year. To me, it's really invigorating, but it's really difficult to stay on point, to stay clever and stay valid."

As for that glam swagger, Sixx said fashion still is important to rock 'n' roll.

"Show me a rock star that doesn't have style, and I'll show you someone that bores the (expletive) out of me," Sixx said. "I met so many guys in alternative bands (from the '90s) that told me a stylist came to them and brought all the flannel and Army cutoff shorts, and the band would go through all that stuff, because that was the look. Style is everything, whether being in a grunge band or '70s glam. If you don't have style, then go home."

All the dirt

Mötley's style sold well in the 1980s, with hit albums such as "Shout At the Devil" (with its single "Looks That Kill"), "Theater of Pain" (featuring the power ballad "Home Sweet Home") and "Dr. Feelgood." That last album was a commercial and artistic turning point in 1989, and its producer, Bob Rock, brought more polish to the Crüe as he did later with Metallica.

"Bob told me, 'I always knew you had it in you, but it was just a matter of me pushing you to become a better lyricist,'"" Sixx said. "From there, I became a better lyricist, better songwriter, better arranger, and I understood things a lot better."

Yet, changes to Mötley Crüe began soon after the "Dr. Feelgood" tour. Neil left the band between 1992 and 1994, while Lee quit in 2000. Mötley Crüe had a mainstream comeback in 2001 when its all-member-written autobiography, "The Dirt," became a New York Times best-seller. The unflinching, explicit book has been in the works as a film, but with setbacks Sixx acknowledged during his interview.

"All this stuff takes time," Sixx said. "When you work with other companies, they don't see it on the same timeline as you. That doesn't mean we won't do (the movie), it just won't be in the timeframe that we believe would be correct."

Two years after "The Dirt," Mötley Crüe re-released its entire back catalog on its own label, followed by Lee's return in 2005 and a successful arena tour. Its latest album, "Saints of Los Angeles," is meant as an audio version of "The Dirt," with autobiographical lyrics about the band's excessive years. It's the first CD with Sixx, Lee, Mars and Neil in more than a decade.

"It's kind of a narcissistic album, to be honest with you," Sixx said. "But aren't all albums like that, in a weird way? Very rarely do we have a song that isn't something related to us. I think that's why the fans relate to it, because in their mind it's like something they went through."